


All Going To Die

by Gildedmuse



Series: 10 Casts A-Crossing [2]
Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Genre: Challenge Response, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Guide Entry, Parallel Universes, Running, Short One Shot, Sudden Unexpected Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 20:58:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18677284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildedmuse/pseuds/Gildedmuse
Summary: This time Arthur is absolutely certain that this is it, they are going to die.





	All Going To Die

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally written for 12 Days Of Fandom Challenge "10 Casts A-Crossing, but unfortunately I never completed that bit. Partly because I didn't like how this turned out and rewrote as Portal/DW but have lost that.]

**All Going To Die**

  
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a whole remarkable book, had this to say on the subject of alternative universes:   
  
_ If you are thinking of taking a visit to an alternative reality, don’t. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Alternative universes, _ it goes on to state,  _ are tricky places. One never knows what one is in for. For beginners, the size of the universe is big (see the introduction for just how big space is) and is filled with many improbable things, some of which are wonderful (such as the show act put on by Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6 for exactly one week on the Vegion moon) and others of which are quite horrid (such as Vogon poetry). Now imagine that those things were reversed and that Eccentrica Gallumbits were actually terrible in bed and that Vogon poetry was relaxing and well praised. _   
  
The guide then warns that,  _ This is exactly the sort of thing that could happen when visiting an alternate universe. People are always getting confused when skipping through different realities, and are bound to make more than a few mistakes when traveling, most of them fatal.  _ _   
_ _   
_ __ Realities crossing almost never end well. Except, of course, when they do.   
  
And that was the end of it, as far as the Guide was concerned.   
  
*   
  
“Shouldn’t we be running?”   
  
In the face of inevitable doom, the Jyclos of the Alpha-Beta-Alpha Five sector are prone to actually peeling off the final layer of their skin, revealing their innards to the enemy in a suicidal last attempt to scare them off. Girrats may actually start insulting their mother, backwards, in order to prove insanity and get out of the situation by confusing their attacker. The Harripats of Weennim burst into fits of unpredictable dance and song until they either die of exhaustion or some passing hunter shooting them down to try and stop all that annoying racket.   
  
After years of research, Ford had found that Earthlings rarely did anything interesting, only outdone by their refusal to do anything reasonable. So it didn’t surprised him that with only seconds to live, the only thing the Earthling known as Arthur Dent could come up with was, “shouldn’t we be running?”   
  
“Running?” Ford frowned down at his wrist, which didn’t tell him much of anything expect that, despite meaning to have picked one up for the last week, he still didn’t own a watch. “They’re planning to blow up your planet. I don’t think a quick jog to the Chemist is going to help much at this point. Or at any point, actually.”   
  
The only a time a trip to the local Chemist helped save Earth from a similar predicament was back in 1948 when a man named Ichabod Daniels had been sent by his wife to pick up a small list of necessities. While on his way back from the shop there a freak and highly illegal wormhole opened up in the middle of the pavement and swallowed Icahbob whole.   
  
The Atere that found Ichabob had, oddly enough, been searching for the shortest route between his house and the Chemists when he accidentally found Earth. Also by some strange coincidence, Atere and Ichabob’s list were exactly the same (save, of course, a treat of malcop liver which, to be fair, is rather hard to come by out of the Decta-Llyn Sector. It is only because of his finding Ichabob and his bag that Atere went home and therefore did not spend his afternoon poking holes in the surface of reality until the Earth collapsed inward on itself.   
  
Of course, when Ichabob wandered home, dazed and without a single thing from her list, he would end up wishing that the Earth had collapsed rather than being sent back to his wife.    
  
“Oh.. Right.” Arthur stared up at the impossibly hanging ships. “I suppose not. Although now that you mention it, I am out of a few things. Toothpaste, maybe a few razors.”   
  
He supposed that after the world ended, no one would care if his breath smelled minty fresh or not, and yet now that it was in his head, Arthur couldn’t help but worry. What if, after all this time, he had been wrong about everything - an idea that was seeming more and more likely ever since Ford announced that he was not from Guilford at all but in fact some small star system that Arthur had never even heard of and much less thought to visit regularly the way one might the home of an old friend - and that once they were dead he wound up standing in front of big, pearl covered gates.   
  
He couldn’t imagine that it would get him in, just having nice breath that smelled like mint (if mint were produced by a bitter tasting chemical compound, at least) but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. He had not been keeping any sort of formal count of his good versus bad deeds, but Arthur couldn’t shake the feeling that fresh breath would be a deciding factor in his fate.   
  
“Arthur?” Ford starts, trying to find something comforting to tell Arthur. Now would appear to be a good time to say something comforting. “Do you have a towel? Oh, wait, I have mine…”   
  
Ford pulled his towel from his pack, right where it always was, and proceeded to wrap it around his head.    
  
“Err…” Maybe it’s some sort of alien ritual, Arthur decided, watching his friend cover his face. “Ford?”   
  
“Yes?”   
  
“What are you doing?”   
  
“Oh,” Ford answers. “I just thought it might help if I couldn’t see the danger, is all.”   
  
That makes more sense than anything Arthur had heard all day, which said more, perhaps, about the sort of day he’d been having than how sensible Ford actually was. “Is it helping?”   
  
“Not at all.” Sighing, Ford took the towel away from his eyes, tossing it over his shoulder. He stared back up at the ships. “Well, I suppose this is it.”   
  
“We are going to… Ford? Do you hear that?”   
  
Ford, in fact, did hear that although he had no idea what it was. It wasn’t the Guide. Ford had spent many a night with only his towel and the Guide for company, and in all those years it had never made a sound quite like this. It wasn’t his Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic, as that had been going off for hours and Ford finally, in a fit of deep annoyance at the signal it had managed to pick up, thrown it from his flat window. That only left his Electronic Thumb, which unfortunately stopped working right when Ford finally got that signal and needed it most.   
  
This was exactly why he should have bought a different brand. Only, as a research for the Guide, Ford got a discount on Sirius Cybernetics Company products so long as he used their name in his entries. And as Ford was a research for the Guide, it also left him rather poor, so after submitting one confusing entry about how the uninhabited planet of Gerk would have been much more pleasant if it had taken the time to decorate using the new line of holographic walls by Sirius Cybernetics he had his discount Electronic Thumb.   
  
It had been a bad entry, so it seemed far that it was a bad thumb.   
  
So it was nothing of Ford’s making that particular noise, and when Arthur looked at him all Ford could offer was a shrug. “Is it the ships?” Arthur asked, which seemed like the next logical thing to the Earthling, although Ford was rather sure ships didn’t make that sound, either. At least none that he’d even hitched a ride in, and that had been plenty of ships. “Is that the sound they make before they blow us up?”   
  
And then there was a phone booth.   
  
Arthur squeaked (it wasn’t quite manly enough to be called a scream) and Ford grabbed his towel, holding it back over his eyes. No, that still didn’t work, so ever reluctantly he lowered it back down again. By the time he had, a man had appeared, although not quite as suddenly as the phone booth.   
  
“You,” the man shouts, pointing out at the two of them. “In the jammies.”   
  
Ford looked over to Arthur, who was staring at the phone booth much in the same way he stared at the ships. More so, even, as space ships were supposed to be strange and impossible, whereas phone booths, even old ones, were just normal objects that shouldn’t be appearing the way this one just had. “I… I’m sorry. Did you mean me?”   
  
The man frowns, looking around at the bulldozed house, the abandoned street. “Is there anyone else standing around in their jammies? Yes, you!”   
  
Ford decided he liked this man quite a lot, despite his entrance which seemed a little flashy and unnecessary. “What is that?” He asked, pointing around the strange man to the blue box he’d popped out of.   
  
The man spun around, looking at the phone booth as though it was a surprise to find it there at all. “That?” He asked, looking back to Ford, who nodded. “That is my ship?”   
  
“Excuse me?’ Arthur finally found his voice. “Did you say ship?”   
  
“Yes, my ship,” the man repeated.   
  
It was unlike any ship Arthur had ever seen, but then he‘d never seen any proper ones except the big, yellow ones waiting to blow up his planet. More surprising, it was unlike any Ford had ever seen, either. “It’s quite small.”   
  
“Ah, well…” The man rubbed at his head, offering a hapless shrug. “It is bigger on the inside. Anyway, it‘s very important that we get… Oh…”   
  
The man had only just looked up, noticing the ships for the first time. Arthur wondered how he missed the giant ships hovering right over them. Perhaps, he was more use to these things. “What time is it?”   
  
“Does it matter!” And now he was panicking. Arthur thought this would be a good time to panic, and since no one else seemed to be doing so, then it all rested on him. He would have to panic enough for all of them. “They just announced their demolishing Earth! I don’t think it matters what time it is!”   
  
“A little late, then,” the man answered. “Well, everyone in the ship.”   
  
He opens the door, waving the two of them inside. Arthur looked over at Ford, unsure exactly what he should do. He was getting ready to properly panic, and being shoved into a small blue box did not seemed like it would help. Ford looked back at Arthur and thought about how he looked as though he was getting ready to panic and how he didn’t want to be stuffed in a small box with him.   
  
“Could we hurry?” The man called, waving his hands wildly to get their attention. “We don’t have all the time in the universe and, trust me, that is saying a lot coming from me.”   
  
Right. There was that. Ford looked up at the giant, yellow ships that were going to blow up this whole miserable little planet. He looked at the crazy man with his blue box that could appear in an instance. He looked at Arthur who was standing outside of his demolished home in his dress robe looking as though he was going mad.   
  
Ah, well, things couldn’t get any worse.   
  
“Grab your towel,” he yelled, hopping around Arthur to the ruins of his home. He had to dig through some bricks and what not, but he managed to find a torn up, dusty old towel. He sniffed at it, just to make sure it was clean.   
  
“Ford?” Arthur had stood completely still, mouth hanging open, hands stuck in his hair. This could not be happening. “Ford, what are you-”   
  
“Come on, Arthur!” Throwing the towel around his friend’s neck, Ford gave Arthur a push, sending him stumbling towards the blue box. “You can’t stay on this planet for ever!”   
  
“Yes,” Arthur protests, but he did not stop Ford from shoving him inside the box. “Yes, I bloody well can!”   
  
Behind the two men, the doctor smiled. Yet another day of saving the universe. Of course, it was a shame about this Earth, but there were plenty of others out there. With one last look at the Vogon ships, the doctor stepped into the TARDIS just in time to hear Ford declare, “Wow… It really is bigger on the inside, isn’t it?” 


End file.
